Balgowlah North Public School eNewsletter

"We acknowledge and respect the traditional custodians on whose land our school rests. Their footsteps and whispers blow in the wind, drift on the clouds, remain deep in the sandstone and float on the waterways of this place. Their memories and Dreaming stories will continue to connect us to the land and guide future generations of our school community. Country is alive if you take the time to look, listen and learn."

Principal's message

This week has been tremendously busy for the students, teachers and parent community of BNPS, with everything from election bbqs, vibrant and engaging P&C meetings and sold out community events, to students participating in rich opportunities such as the Zone Cross Country, Writer’s Festival and National Simultaneous Storytime. It is clear our school community is a wonderfully rich and dynamic hub of positive activity.

NAPLAN update
NAPLAN for 2022 is now complete. Thank you to Mrs Sarah King for coordinating the implementation of these assessments for Years 3 and 5. We are so proud of our students for approaching this experience with positivity, resilience and aspirations to achieve their personal best.

National Simultaneous Storytime
On Thursday this week, Mrs Reinhardt and I also have the great pleasure of sharing a story with our K-2 students as part of National Simultaneous Storytime. Participation in this wonderful national event that promotes a love of literature is a tradition at BNPS and something we always look forward to. This year’s text is Family Tree by Josh Pyke and Ronojoy Ghosh. You may like to read more about National Simultaneous Storytime here: https://www.alia.org.au/nss

Kindergarten 2023
We offer a comprehensive transition program to support our new Kindergarten students and their families as they commence their journey towards starting school next year.

The key dates of our Kindergarten 2023 Transition program are:

Kindergarten 2023 School Tours
Thursday June 23rd 9:30am
Thursday August 11th 9:30am
3rd August- Virtual Information Session 5-6pm

2023 Student Orientation sessions
10th November 9:15-10:45am
17th November 9:15-10:45am

We encourage all new families to register for a school tour by contacting the office. We also recommend families return their enrolment forms and download the school app as soon as possible so they can start receiving information and updates about our orientation and transition to school program.

Finally, we would like to wish our talented young athletes the best of luck as they represent our school at the Zone Cross Country this Thursday.

Rachel Ridley
R/Principal

A message from our P&C President

Dear Parents and Families,
Last week, we as parents had the most amazing opportunity to be shown first hand what our children are learning at BNPS in regards to robotics and coding. Not only that, we actually got our hands on the robots, and had as much fun as our children do on a regular basis thanks largely to Olivia Wakelin, who is driving this great initiative. However it is also the wider group of teachers, who in many cases are getting out of their comfort zones to learn about robotics, coming up with some incredibly creative ways to bring many subjects, like maths and science, to life through the use of robotics.

A massive thanks also to you as a parent community for supporting the school to purchase these robots through various fund raising events throughout the year. Can I please encourage you to attend these nights so that you can see first hand. The presentation by Olivia Wakelin, and the supported demonstrations by Rachel Ridley and Jenni Reinhartd really was one of those special nights where you could feel the excitement in the room. You can only imagine the feeling when our kids get their hands on the robots!

These are the types of initiatives we as a P&C are continually looking to raise funds for, to give our kids every opportunity possible to excite and engage them while at BNPS. As a P&C we meet twice a term, one meeting in person and one virtually. We will continue working with the school leadership team to discuss more specific topics as a group for the in person meetings, so watch this space. At our last meeting we covered a huge range of topics from gender diversity, disabilities, charities, and of course education and what is currently happening at BNPS.

My last request to you, is the same as the message I gave to this year’s Kindie parents at the welcome drinks: GET INVOLVED! We have had two years of COVID and almost one year of rain (well it feels like that!) but we need you to get involved and embrace, treasure and nurture this wonderful community. Our triva night sold out in less than 20 minutes, and we would have loved to have had a second night, but we simply didn’t have enough volunteers to make this happen. There are certain families that continually give above and beyond, so I am imploring the wider community to please get involved. It's what we teach our kids, the more you put in, the more you will get out, so let's lead by example.

Richard Wokes
P&C President

Congratulations to Jake I on receiving his K-2 Citizenship Award and Rose K for receiving her Y3-6 Citizenship Award! We are so proud to have you both as students in our school.

Well done to all of our amazing Medal, Banner and Principal award winners!

Congratulations to three of our marvellous Musicians of the Month!

Well done to our super swimmers, Chloe and Millie G!

A huge thank you to our World's Greatest Shavers!

School News

Learning Walks and Talks
On Tuesday, BNPS welcomed colleagues from Balgowlah Heights Public School, Stewart House School and Beacon Hill Public School into our classrooms. Learning Walks and Talks are based on our professional learning around Dr Lyn Sharratt’s book, ‘Clarity: What Matters Most in Learning, Teaching and Leading’. They are a data collection tool for us to use to monitor the impact of and inform next steps for professional learning across the school.

Our visitors had the opportunity to speak to many of our students about what they were learning and why. These 5 critical questions are used to collect data on how well students are taking ownership of their learning:

1. What are you learning? Why?
2. How are you doing
3. How do you know?
4. How can you improve?
5. Where can you go for help?

Students from Kindergarten all the way through to Year 6 were excited to share their lesson’s learning intention, how they thought they were going in the lesson, the various strategies they could use if they needed help and how they would know if they were successful in the task they were working on.

Our visitors all remarked on how keen and able the students were when discussing their learning and that our collective school vision from K-6 was very noticeable. We were very proud of how engaged and respectful our students were as we moved around the school.

Well done to all of our wonderful students and teachers!

Rel/Deputy
Jenni Reinhardt

School Photos
Polish up the black shoes and get your best, sparkling smiles ready. School photos are coming up in Week 7, Thursday, 9th June, 2022. All students will have their individual and class photos on this day, as well as sibling photos.

Please ensure your child is wearing full, winter uniform.

Your choices are:
Winter tunic, winter skort or slacks with school blue shirt (short or long sleeved). Navy pants or shorts with school blue polo shirt (short or long sleeved). Navy socks or navy tights and black shoes.

To view prices and pay online, please go to www.theschoolphotographer.com.au and enter our school code, found on the flyer: X1253EL46B

National Reconciliation Week – Be Brave. Make Change

National Reconciliation Week is an opportunity for all Australians to celebrate and build on positive and respectful relationships and connections between Australians and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. It is a time to learn about our shared histories, cultures and achievements and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia.

National Reconciliation Week is May 27 – June 3 and this year’s theme is Be Brave. Make Change. These dates commemorate two significant milestones in the reconciliation journey – the 1967 referendum and the High Court Mabo decision respectively.

As a demonstration of our commitment to reconciliation our school will be holding a flag raising ceremony during our Monday morning lines at the beginning of week 6, where the national flag and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags will be raised together. Students will also be engaged in learning activities throughout the week to understand how as individuals we can “be brave and make change”.

The week ahead

26 May Zone Cross Country

30 May Reconcilliation Week

1 June Mad Science Show (stage 1)

Class snapshot - 6/5M

Stage 3 City Square Project

PBL

Library News

Sydney Writer’s Festival
On Tuesday Mrs Harris and I had the pleasure of attending the Sydney Writer’s Festival Primary School Days with an enthusiastic group of budding writers from years 4-6. We enjoyed presentations by four fantastic writers, each with different backgrounds and experiences. The students were given personal tips and insights into the writing process and came away feeling excited to read their books. We were very proud of the way the group represented the school.

Debbie Horsely
Teacher/Librarian

School App

Our current School App is SZapp. If you do not already have this app, please click on the following link for instructions of how to download it to your device: Schoolzine

The old School ENews app is no longer functional.

P&C news

Trivia Night
BNPS Trivia Night - one big night ONLYDid somebody say…….BNPS Trivia???It’s time to rally your smartest (or your most fun!) friends and put together a table of 8. Choose a theme & table name and go for “best themed table” glory!18 June 2022 - Wakehurst Golf ClubTable set up and pre-drinks from 7pm - Trivia to start at 7.30pmTickets - $520 per table ($65pp) and include trivia, an assortment of light & substantial canapés, cheese platters & musicTickets on sale 20 May through Flexischools - get in quick to avoid disappointment.Can’t make the night?? Be sure to purchase your raffle tickets to help support the P&C and our school.

Waste Free Wednesday

It was a very close competition last week. KH came out the winners with an impressive score of 100 waste free!
Keep it up BNPS!

Band News

Congratulations to our band program community for the successful sausage sizzle and cake stall on Election Day which raised funds to support our band and strings programs.

Thank you to Amanda Lye and Clare Rhodes for organising and managing the stall – huge effort. Thanks also to the many parents and students who volunteered to serve at the stall and to the bakers who provided yummy treats for the cake stall.

Special thanks to Mark Riddington for turning the sausages, bacon and eggs all day.

Second hand uniform shop

The uniform shop is now open weekly, on Wednesdays, between 2.30pm – 3.30pm.

We are located on the front verandah (Manning Street side), next to 6/5M – Just look for the clothing racks!

Credit card facilities available. Cash also accepted.

Please continue to supply us with your new logo, good condition uniform donations.

Northern Beaches Council Message

We have received a number of complaints about dogs off-leash surrounding Balgowlah North Public School during school pick up. Our beautiful dogs all have different personalities and unfortunately not all dogs like one another, which can pose a risk to both dogs and children. We will be increasing our patrols in response to the complaints and we’d rather not have to issue fines ($330 for dogs off leash) so we encourage all parents to please keep your dogs on-leash while around the school area.